Most of conventional network interface cards ("NICs") are essentially passive devices. A basic functionality of the conventional NICs is to send and/or receive data packets between components (e.g., desktops, servers, etc.) of the network. In addition, the conventional NICs provide a simple management and a consistent level of performance in switched or shared networks regardless of a software application. The conventional NICs do not directly "interact" with other network components and do not participate in managing of network resources and services.
Some conventional software applications for managing the network, groupware, priority business applications, multicast-based applications, and multimedia applications require the network to be capable of monitoring traffic levels, enforcing policies and adjusting the resource. Delivering these and other functionalities (e.g., creating a virtual local area network ("VLAN")) while controlling complexity, requires that the network components interact with the network.
Although, there are some conventional network packet classification (or filtering) systems which are utilized in conventional networks (e.g., a network sniffer), such conventional network packet classification systems are primitive and do not provide assistance in an intelligent network management.